I put that man down hours ago, why do you keep carrying him.

From STAT, Churnalism and A Zen Parable by Adam Cifu, MD.  A dubious piece of research is published and Cifu finds it hard not to pile on.  A pleasantly gentle introduction to the issue of exercising restraint in a wild of wide open communication.

There is a Zen parable in which two monks, one old and one young, are walking through a forest. They come upon a rich man by a stream. The rich man says to the older monk, “Monk, carry me across that stream so I don’t get my clothes muddy.” The young monk begins to protest but the older one quiets him and carries the rich man on his back across the stream.

The monks go their way, and the rich man goes his.

After a few hours walking in silence, the old monk says, “It is a beautiful day to walk in the forest. Days like this are ones you must cherish.”

The young monk replies, “That rich man was terribly rude to you. I can’t believe that you agreed to carry him across the stream. He was younger and stronger than you.”

The old monk says, “I put that man down hours ago, why do you keep carrying him.”

Last week STAT published an article titled How infectious disease experts are responding to Covid nearly three years in. Vinay Prasad published a hilarious screed about this article on his Observations and Thoughts Substack and cross-posted it here.[i] His take is definitely worth a read.

In the STAT article, the author admitted that “many people appear to have given up trying to avoid the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Restaurants are packed, airports are hopping. Once-ubiquitous masks are now an increasingly rare sight.” He reached out to “epidemiologists, virologists, immunologists, and related experts” with a series of “yes” or “no” questions and then published the data of the 34 who replied. These 34 people had definitely NOT given up on trying to avoid SARS-CoV-2

I should have read the article and Vinay’s take and left it behind as the old monk left the rich man, but the article has been bothering me.[ii] I hope that writing about it will allow me to forget it.